Track and Field Blogs - Molly Huddle

I just arrived at the home base of Leuven, Belgium on Sunday, and it feels like just yesterday that I was living the simple life in the sparse dorms, eating waffles and busing to Flanders Cup meets every week.

I came from running a 3000m in Cork, Ireland, and despite the relatively short distance between central Belgium and Southern Ireland, it took about 12 hours and a plane, train, bus and a good walk to get here.

The race in Cork was my first race after traveling from the States, so I knew it might feel rough from adjusting to the 5 hour time change. Also, though it was my first time there, I was warned that Cork City Sports often coincides with typical Irish weather of cold, wind and rain. I was pleasantly surprised when the race day sky was nearly completely sunny and the weather almost balmy! The race was pretty evenly run; we had a familiar rabbit (part of the Irish Rhode Island former Providence College running contingent Stephanie Reilly) for the first 1200 meters, then I found myself sharing the lead for the next 1200 meters. I didn’t feel as bad as I thought I might and was hoping to pull out a decent kick, but I had been feeling flat since the Trials and was caught off guard by the kick with 600 to go and responded with too little too late. I ended up third, 5 seconds behind teammate and roommate Amy Mortimer, in 9 flat. I hope that the race served its main purpose of getting my legs used to faster paced running so that I’m prepared to take a crack at the A standard in my next 5000 meters.

That brings me to the topic of the newly minted goals for the rest of the season. It has been really hard to find motivation in races and workouts since my hugely disappointing races at the Trials. I had one goal of making the Olympic team this year, and it was all I cared about. Now that it’s over and I wasn’t successful, I’ve had to regroup and decide if I wanted to even come to Europe at all to race, since I was clearly not in the shape I was in at the beginning of the season. I decided I can either pack it in and sit at home bored and depressed and watching results from afar, or I could suck it up and focus on my next goal of making the world championship team next year and getting the A standard in the 5000m. I decided to cross my fingers and hope to race myself into shape in Europe. The next race on the schedule is a 5000m in Stockholm in 8 days, which will be plenty fast for an A standard. Then I am running a 1500m at a low-key meet in Oordegem, Belgium four days later. Maybe if I’m lucky and running well, I can add a big meet at the end of the month before coming home and doing a few road races before possibly coming back over for the second session of races. The theme for the rest of the summer is: dust myself off and keep going.